I would like to challenge the assumption that patents are filed by "individuals" only.

At least in Japan, I know from working for a world renowned high-tech firm that every single employee in the R&D, Engineering, and Design sections were mandated by the company to file one patent a month from the month new recruits completed their initial training (including how to complete documents that will enable the company to file the patent). The company had roughly 300 such employees, which is a minimum of 3600 patent applications per year and that was one company. Those patents were not individual assets, but as they were all done on company time, they belong to the company.

Perhaps some Chinese firms have begun to implement such policies.

And perhaps the surge in the number of patents filed is an indication of how effective patent legislation has become in China.

The article and comments miss a very important point: for years it was considered irrelevant and a waste of money to patent anything in China, either because it would too complex and protected, or because the legal system was so week it would be impossible to defend potential violations, or because that would open the door for locals to copy it (the explanation of the invention would be available in local languages).
The result is that Chinese took advantage of this hole, and started to patent everything that was patented in other countries but not China.
That's why most applications are only in China (and not in other markets), and why it is mostly locals patenting them.

I don't underestimate the ingenuity of the Chinese, but when China has to buy a rusty shell of a former USSR aircraft carrier to boast its military and inventivity, I honestly don't find that suitable for a world leading power.
I say, first let the Chinese put a man on, let's say, Mars and then ok, I admit they are a top technological contender. Or, more earthly, let them build a Bmw or a Mercedes on their own from scratch and no one will ever distrust the abilities of the Chinese.
It's basically about results. Come up with groundbreaking results and all the unbelievers will be silenced.

I spent the week-end with a friend who, Praise God, is a Polish genius and his wife who, Praise God again, is not. He 'explained' fractals and Mandelbrot to me and demonstrated, I forget how but it was quite conclusive, that China is about to collapse. I find that comforting and hope he was right. I'm sorry, I'll read that again - of course Pyotr was right - I just hope Mandelbrot was right, too.

I have made a quick chekck on the web about :"patents by head of population" around the world. Wikipedia, OECD and some others.Final result: I acannot get a reliable figure. Some are upto 3 or 5 years old . It seems that the top countries are Japan, South Korea , USA and China (in absolute terms).Confusing. It would be nice if The Economist would provide the source of statistical information. In these days , where information is everything, it is sad to distrust any data that you see published.

Most patents filed in the US have the only purpose of providing aid to legal defense against patent violation. They are actually only legal bargaining chips, serving more to the legal rather than the engineering department of a firm.

The fact that practically anything, even the smell of a fart, is patent-able in the US helps imitators and counterfeiters justify their disregard for our patent system and be right to do so, in many instances.

On another note, the fact that most high-school and increasingly top college top performers are either of Chinese and Indian origin busts the myth about any racial advantage when it comes to show creativity or knowledge. As their societies advance locally in terms of providing an entrepreneurship-friendly framework, Chinese and Indians and whatever else (Africans, Latinos, Arabs, you name it) will make the scientific / technological scenarios become more and more geographically fuzzy.

Let's take it easy,daytime is also prime time for sleep.No sleep,no invention.

I have read a joke in a American meadia.it say,poor Chinese has to work in Iphone-pipeline for 32 hours every day,how they have the time to invent somethings? right,but they seriously neglect the fact that there are also tons of lazybones in China.We don't want to work,but we want money,more money,ships of gold,so we have to do somethings for our daydreams such as inventing a machine to produce gold etc.

Complacency plus tendency to be dismissive of one's rivals will become one's undoing. In the Art of War, there is a warning on under-estimating one's enemies. Cockiness will condemn a cock to having its crown unceremoniously chopped off and running around like a no-head chicken instead!

Why do you use patent applications rather than patent grants. (http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/details.jsp?country_code=CN) The differences in particular between residents and non-residents are striking. In China only about a quarter of applications by residents are granted but half of non-residents´applications. In US its in both cases roughly half.

Wonderfully dubious reporting by TE, unsurprising though. Claims and suspicions ... Like iffy patents being filed (though, who would have heard of the Apple/Samsung dispute). It would have been useful to note the areas where patents are being file - and that in some technologies, the Chinese are clearly miles ahead with patent filings and IMPORTANTLY citations in the scientific literature. The geography of science has shifted East!

One merely have to look at any engineering journals, and look at the Chinese names. Look at ivy, Berkeley, Stanford, and the Chinese that lead their research groups. It is amazing how the US love to take credit. So the US claims that Chinese are not creative, while importing Chinese scientists? How ironic.

How ironic too that the Chinese inventions have to seek patent protections in the West. Surely, such a great nation (China) has the credibility to honor property rights particularly science and technology rights. Also, how ironic that Chinese scientists on their own free will decide to contribute to Western and even SE Asian academia/societies. Surely, such a great nation (China) has the world's best scientists within its shore as it so conducive to the progress of science and technology.

In most parts of the economy, productivity (and pace of innovation & product iterations) would be higher without government appointed monopolies and hundreds of billions of dollars (sucked from businesses & consumers) sank into lawyers & court time.

Let profit go to the best implementers and best marketers (whoever is good at that will find it advantageous to sponsor tech development & new designs in any case). With more competition, less inequality, much weaker barriers to entry and far more legal space in which we can design new products, the world would be a richer place (and more egalitarian; and getting richer faster).

Last 100 years, China was really locked out of the global competition. The did not have ability to nurture its talents. The US on the other hand had plenty of time, and yet have to import brains because their population is too uncompetitive. So, the US lose. What do you have to be pride of if your people are so un innovative, that you have to import innovative people from China?

In the last 30 years, China was not locked out of the global competition. During this period, China had enjoyed unprecedented economic growth from very poor conditions, to the surprise of those who expected continuing Chinese chaos and disintegration (like the Tiananmen Incident) when Chinese people are exposed to the good life of the developed countries. For 30 years earlier on, China was locked out of global competition by powerful hostile powers. For 100 years before that, China suffered foreign invasions, civil war and societal chaos. And hundreds of years before this, China locked herself out of global society.

The US has her strength. That is why brilliant and enterprising people are attracted to her to contribute to her economy and national power. Unfortunately, her politics of using good (like democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, etc.) to achieve evil (creating social disorder, conflicts, governance failure in other countries) has corrupted her own people and political system.

What are these patents in? Patent filing is just as murky and exaggerated in the US. You won't believe what software engineers file patents on, even something as trivial as a scroll bar. Steve Jobs filed patents on the rounded corners of iPhone for crying out loud! So don't be calling the kettle black. If China's patents are in high speed rail/transportation/manufacturing etc. they might actually be more legit.

"Or is it because government incentives have prompted people to file lots of iffy patent applications, which the local patent office has a tendency to approve?"

Actually this is a pretty accurate description of the state of affairs in the US, resulting in a plague of patent trolls. As we have seen with a giant US firm with a fruit logo, it is possible to patent things lika a rounded rectangle and trademark a leaf.

How often are real earth shaking innovation really happen in the last 100 years? Not many. What matters are tiny innovations, that actually produce jobs. This means solving engineering problems, and providing better services that produce jobs.

How often are real earth shaking innovation really happen in the last 100 years? Not many. What matters are tiny innovations, that actually produce jobs. This means solving engineering problems, and providing better services that produce jobs.

Probably, If we look at Countries like japan, Korea, and taiwan, chines derivative countries, they are all superior to European countries, So, it is fitting that China will outcompete the US, Not to mention, most of the patent by the Us are from Chinese as well,

LOL...Actually, Those Chinese derivative countries are innovative, and that it is proven where it counts, the market. The Invent is not innovation. Also, those inventions where probably made by Chinese as well..LOL Also, your inner superiority of "american innovation" is not measurable, while the East Asian innovation is measure, because it is where it counts. Chinese produce more papers, have more graduates, and direct your research institutions, and win competitions. This is measure. Superior is measure. Self-concede is not.
Also, Chinese are superior. Superior do not content will steal. You see, American need to steal Chinese to compete, but Chinese do not need to. American should learn from the Chinese..LOL

It all depends on what standards to use to define winning. If innovation equals weirdness, the US wins. If the standard is military bases around the world, the US wins. If the standard is number of wars started, the US wins. Americans really need to get out of the we are the number 1 complex. You are accustomed to entitlement in the US. It isn't a common practice in a globalized world!